Sunday, October 24, 2004

What happened yesterday is one of the ugliest massacres that targeted Iraqis since the 9th. of April but this one belongs to a category of attacks that is somehow different from the rest because the terrorists didn’t attack a base for the ING, an oil pipeline or any type of fixed targets; a bus or convoy of cars are not easy to locate and identify, especially when the victims are not wearing uniforms and this suggests the occurrence of treason in this attack and this what makes me even more angry.

There are two possible theories to explain how this happened, the first one suggests that there are infiltrators among the ING and/or the IP in that region, which is quiet possible as we heard more than once about officers (among whom were some high ranking officers) being dismissed from service for suspicions regarding their loyalty.
Add to this that the area is considered a stronghold for Wahabi extremists who might have used the information provided by a corrupt officer to carry the attack on the recruits who came from Southern cities.

Another fact that I almost forgot is that during the war, most of the active Ba’ath members and high ranking officers left Baghdad and headed towards either Anbar or Diyala provinces and many of those never came back, settled there and mixed with the population and probably joined the ING and this is one of the reasons why these two provinces became fields for countless anti-Iraqis and anti-coalition activities.

The second theory talks about the possible involvement of the Iranian intelligence in planning for the massacre and this explanation looks reasonable too because this region in Diyala province is close to the borders with Iran which makes it easy for criminal elements to sneak across the borders (just as Mosul and Anbar are close to Syria) and at different times there were reports about arresting intruders coming from Iran in this region or neighboring ones.

Whatever the mechanism of the attack was, the ministries of defense and interior must perform a full review for their staff’s backgrounds out there and the IP and ING must be scanned thoroughly for infiltrators because we can’t afford to see tens of young Iraqis die because of a stupid mistake.

Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom everywhere and together with the bad news there always come some uplifting good news to tell the terrorists that we are not giving up... never.
And is a bunch of today’s good news :

-The IP, assisted by the multinational forces stopped two attempts for blowing up the oil pipelines that transport the Iraqi oil from Kirkuk’s oil fields to Jihan’s port in Turkey securing an export capacity of 300 000 barrels/day.

-The IP in Basra arrested the members of 7 different gangs, freeing a number of hostages that have been abducted by those gangs in order to ask for ransoms.
Also the IP found 29 different stolen vehicles on the gangs and returned them to their owners.
Meanwhile, three Iranians, smuggling hashish were also arrested near Basra.

-The IP in Kirkuk arrested a gang responsible for robbery and abduction and utilizing the money they make to supply terrorist groups with weapons and ammunition.

-Six new police stations were opened in Samarra to enforce law and order in the city that was recently cleaned from hundreds of terrorists.